Velominati Super Prestige: Men’s Liege-Bastogne Liege 2017

This guy. This fucking Valverde guy. How can you make it look so easy? Dan Martin was right to look like a little bitch on the podium, because that’s exactly what Valvecap made of him: his little bitch.

What kills me about him is he looks totally awesome, but I can’t find myself liking him. What’s the matter with me? Looking Fantastic is normally all I need. Maybe its because he’s bald. But that hasn’t stopped me before. Chalk it up to the great mysteries of life.

Liege is a race that’s dear to my heart; my dad and I did it together when I was seventeen and it was one of the greatest rides of my life. It’s a great classic, but today’s era of specialization means we rarely see riders contest the cobbled classics as well as the Ardennes classics. Yet, this year we’ve got Greg Van Avermaet lining up after winning Roubaix in the true Hardman style of Eddy Mereckx or Sean Kelly.

So lets make this happen people: I’m voting for GvA, nearly assuring everyone he won’t be anywhere near the podium. Appologies in advance. You know the drill: get the picks in by the time the clock goes to zero. Good luck!

About frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking.

As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it.

Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen.

I was up early this am to have breakfast a couple of hours before a bike ride. But, was raining. So, what to do? Watch the race ! I really enjoyed watching the Cannondale team at the end put forth some efforts. Henao too. Dan Martin had a great attack but just looked to have sit his butt down at the top and at the wrong time. And boom, there went Valverde. That left turn just isn’t Martin’s corner hey?

I had the NBC Sports package to livestream but regret, they started to broadcast just as the ladies’ finished !? What a week for Anna and the Boehls team. Wow. Katarzyna and Annemiek have just been up against such a strong team this spring. And Pauline today ?

The spring classics and ardennes seem to have gone by so fast! Good fun. Cheers all

I was up early this am to have breakfast a couple of hours before a bike ride. But, was raining. So, what to do? Watch the race ! I really enjoyed watching the Cannondale team at the end put forth some efforts. Henao too. Dan Martin had a great attack but just looked to have sit his butt down at the top and at the wrong time. And boom, there went Valverde. That left turn just isn’t Martin’s corner hey?

I had the NBC Sports package to livestream but regret, they started to broadcast just as the ladies’ finished !? What a week for Anna and the Boehls team. Wow. Katarzyna and Annemiek have just been up against such a strong team this spring. And Pauline today ?

The spring classics and ardennes seem to have gone by so fast! Good fun. Cheers all

as much as i enjoy watching the Ronde and Paris Roubaix, i just can’t get into the Ardennes classics, from a viewer’s perspective. as a rider, i would imagine i would like the Ardennes better than Flanders, though..

I was up early this am to have breakfast a couple of hours before a bike ride. But, was raining. So, what to do? Watch the race ! I really enjoyed watching the Cannondale team at the end put forth some efforts. Henao too. Dan Martin had a great attack but just looked to have sit his butt down at the top and at the wrong time. And boom, there went Valverde. That left turn just isn’t Martin’s corner hey?

I was up early too (usually am anyway … even on the weekends). I have NBC Gold and the app loaded on my Amazon Fire Stick and Apple TV. Both kept asking me to validate with a code on my computer. I did and it kept rejecting the code (tried several different ones that the app kept putting on my TV screen) as invalid. WTF??? So I ended up streaming on my computer directly on NBC Gold website and hooked up HDMI cable to watch on my TV. Defeated the whole purpose of having the app on the TV. And I was able to watch the replay on the app no problem. Again, WTF???

Semi-long ride with a couple of my young gun riding pals afterwards. They were nice to the old guy.

It ended up being a bit over 17 hours… I could post a strava link, but in a nutshell, 300km on the dot with 10,300m of vert metres. It almost came undone an hour in when I was descending in the dark and a wallaby crossed in front of me and tried to to take me out… it happened so fast I didn’t have time to react. I’ve had a nights sleep, not feeling too bad, however I firmly believe tomorrow will be a real bitch…

I had same issue with the app on my phone when trying to watch PR at the kiddo’s last bike race… kept being rejected despite my use of correct login and pw. Yet I’m 100% fine to watch on my laptop. Squirrelly isn’t it?

@Ron

That’s the real heartbreaker isn’t it? To see the recent photo of a very cool dude with his two young sons. Treasure every day for sure.

I’ve had the same issue and used the same fix. The NBC Gold site/interface was designed by a one-eared, lobotomized chimp. Perhaps a commentary on the sport’s visibility in the U.S. Meanwhile in Texas you can get better coverage of high school football. There’s WTF for you.

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

I’ve had the same issue and used the same fix. The NBC Gold site/interface was designed by a one-eared, lobotomized chimp. Perhaps a commentary on the sport’s visibility in the U.S. Meanwhile in Texas you can get better coverage of high school football. There’s WTF for you.

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

I’ve just noticed the same thing has happened to me. I didn’t even know Tony Martin was riding so didn’t specify ‘Dan’!

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

I’ve just noticed the same thing has happened to me. I didn’t even know Tony Martin was riding so didn’t specify ‘Dan’!

You guys have to remember the auto-mapping is done by the software, not a person…basically it goes and looks to see what rider is usually associated with “Martin”, it doesn’t cross-check what you might have meant or the start list…so either get clever enough with your name so the auto-mapper has no idea what to do with it (for instance, Bretto’s “Bad Shit” which was Malmerde which is French for bad shit meaning Valverde…) so we have to do it manually, or be specific enough that the software will map to the correct rider. Best practice is always to include the first letter of first name at least in order to avoid confusion.

But you can always dispute your picks, so just go ahead and use that mechanism in order to alert us to the wrong mapping.

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

I’ve just noticed the same thing has happened to me. I didn’t even know Tony Martin was riding so didn’t specify ‘Dan’!

You guys have to remember the auto-mapping is done by the software, not a person…basically it goes and looks to see what rider is usually associated with “Martin”, it doesn’t cross-check what you might have meant or the start list…so either get clever enough with your name so the auto-mapper has no idea what to do with it (for instance, Bretto’s “Bad Shit” which was Malmerde which is French for bad shit meaning Valverde…) so we have to do it manually, or be specific enough that the software will map to the correct rider. Best practice is always to include the first letter of first name at least in order to avoid confusion.

But you can always dispute your picks, so just go ahead and use that mechanism in order to alert us to the wrong mapping.

This happened to me last year and I learned my lesson. But yet another reason to say: F**k @frank!

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

Frank/Keepers, I’m a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I’ve previously Delgado’d myself out of any real chance to make ‘the Big League’ in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women’s LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men’s LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance – rather than merely writing ‘Martin’? Cheers!

I’ve just noticed the same thing has happened to me. I didn’t even know Tony Martin was riding so didn’t specify ‘Dan’!

You guys have to remember the auto-mapping is done by the software, not a person…basically it goes and looks to see what rider is usually associated with “Martin”, it doesn’t cross-check what you might have meant or the start list…so either get clever enough with your name so the auto-mapper has no idea what to do with it (for instance, Bretto’s “Bad Shit” which was Malmerde which is French for bad shit meaning Valverde…) so we have to do it manually, or be specific enough that the software will map to the correct rider. Best practice is always to include the first letter of first name at least in order to avoid confusion.

But you can always dispute your picks, so just go ahead and use that mechanism in order to alert us to the wrong mapping.

I should add to this: best practice to add first name or letter of first name is also for Keepers who are mapping something like 250 unmapped picks and really can’t be fucked to imagine which “Martin” you mean and which is or isn’t on the start list.

This happened to me last year and I learned my lesson. But yet another reason to say: F**k @frank!

You guys have to remember the auto-mapping is done by the software, not a person…basically it goes and looks to see what rider is usually associated with “Martin”, it doesn’t cross-check what you might have meant or the start list…so either get clever enough with your name so the auto-mapper has no idea what to do with it (for instance, Bretto’s “Bad Shit” which was Malmerde which is French for bad shit meaning Valverde…) so we have to do it manually, or be specific enough that the software will map to the correct rider. Best practice is always to include the first letter of first name at least in order to avoid confusion.

But you can always dispute your picks, so just go ahead and use that mechanism in order to alert us to the wrong mapping.

I should add to this: best practice to add first name or letter of first name is also for Keepers who are mapping something like 250 unmapped picks and really can’t be fucked to imagine which “Martin” you mean and which is or isn’t on the start list.

Word. I usually do exactly this but on this occasion confusion with the Panzerwagen didn’t even cross my mind.

You guys have to remember the auto-mapping is done by the software, not a person…basically it goes and looks to see what rider is usually associated with “Martin”, it doesn’t cross-check what you might have meant or the start list…so either get clever enough with your name so the auto-mapper has no idea what to do with it (for instance, Bretto’s “Bad Shit” which was Malmerde which is French for bad shit meaning Valverde…) so we have to do it manually, or be specific enough that the software will map to the correct rider. Best practice is always to include the first letter of first name at least in order to avoid confusion.

But you can always dispute your picks, so just go ahead and use that mechanism in order to alert us to the wrong mapping.

Thanks! Duly noted; will be adding first name or correct initial from now on.

On Rule #85: apparently the Giro will have a 5000 EUR prize for the fastest downhill cyclist. Comment from Wout Poels (Sky Team): Life threatening idea to give a prize to the best descender in Giro? I hope this is a joke? What about safety?… https://t.co/OiXlUKvHCI

When will the VSP for the Giro be up? Only 3 more days… Here’s my list to get things going and to avoid yet another Delgado (my VSP season’s gone already).

I saw that too. Stupid idea. Sure, it can be said that it’s up to the riders to go as fast on the descents as they deem prudent or capable. But we all know that once you put money on the table, riders will do crazy things and when you think that some of the better descenders are not the best climbers, it means that they are going for it through cars, other riders, etc. And, as we’ve seen (TJvG in Romandie and Hoogerland in the Tour ) not all the drivers are as skilled at driving amongst riders as they should be. Recipe for disaster IMHO.

Giro d’Italia cancels best downhill rider prize

Good call. The last thing RCS need during the 100th Anniversary of the Giro is some horrendous accident or death caused by an unnecessary competition. I understand the need to keep things fresh and vital and racing lively, so why not bring back (as in Giros past) the black jersey, or the Regions jersey? Maybe a combine jersey like they had in the Tour back in the 80s? A couple of other classifications could be added that would attract sponsors without putting rider’s lives at risk.

On a lighthearted note, the following prizes could be awarded at the end of the race:

The Moser Prize. For the biggest, heaviest rider to do well in the mountains.

I think I might be in contention to win the Contini prize at this weekend’s gravel race. I definitely feel too fat to climb after a horrible April (lack of) training schedule. Looks like there will be a good turnout of local Pros, even Ted King is supposed to race. I will be off the back by mile 0.5, maybe I’ll see them at the finish line if they wait around long enough.